Sammy D Foundation

The Sammy D Foundation will encourage youth to reach their maximum life potential. Our emphasis will be to empower youth to make safe and positive life choices.

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Natalie Cook - Joint CEO

Nat has worked in the health industry as a Registered nurse for over 20 years. She has worked in many areas including Intensive Care, Surgery, Oncology, Paediatrics and Brain Injury Units. Her expertise lies in combining clinical teaching, patient care and administration.

She has been involved in competitive sports for many years and believes this is a fantastic way to help teach young people leadership skills, discipline and commitment.

Her greatest achievement is being Sam’s Mum. Nat has dedicated her future to being Sam’s voice and helping to prevent another family from suffering the loss of a child in a violent incident.

Her broad nursing background including involvement in Brain Injury networks, administration and love of sport will ensure the foundation maintains direction.

Neil Davis - Joint CEO

Neil Davis is self employed and also works on a casual basis at ICA Sportzworx Morphett Vale.

Having coached Sam in numerous sporting activities over twelve years he realises how important sport can be in making friends and bringing families closer together.

As Sam’s father the foundation is important to him because of the difference it can make to at risk youth and their families.

Neil is strongly committed to the mission and aims of the foundation and hopes that by sharing Sam’s story with other young people Sam’s voice will be heard.

Sheree Davis - Treasurer

Sheree Davis works for an accountant and is currently studying a Cert IV in Business at TAFE. Sheree and her partner Randall are both strong supporters of the Sammy D Foundation.

Sheree sees the loss of her brother Sam as a senseless waste and through her involvement with the Foundation, hopes that she can make a difference by telling Sam’s Story. She believes in the aims and direction of the foundation and feels that this is an appropriate way to honour her brother’s memory.

Sheree would like to see the foundation grow rapidly over the next few years so that as many young people as possible can be helped.

Janine Hook – Secretary

Janine Hook works in the Sport and Recreation industry and has done so for the past 12 years. Her various roles within this industry include administration, sport coordination and volunteer management. She has achieved a degree in Cultural Tourism at Flinders University and has a particular interest in Festival and Event Management. She has worked on a number of major events in Adelaide and has been invited to lecture in this subject area on a number of occasions.

Janine’s most important role to date is as Mum to 11 year old Nathan. She is extremely grateful and considers herself fortunate to have had the support of close friends and family, including all those involved in the foundation, in supporting Nathan through the loss of his big buddy Sam.

Janine is committed to the mission and aims of the foundation and believes that by sharing Sam’s story with the community, the Sammy D Foundation will be able to make a difference. If through this process the Foundation’s message can change the course of one young life then that will be a successful outcome. Janine hopes that the foundation will have a positive impact on the lives of many young people.

Nicky Kerr

Nicky Kerr is a registered nurse who for the past 11 years has specialised in intensive care, emergency, trauma and retrieval nursing. She is also a hospital coordinator and advanced life support instructor. In the past she has presented at a national Intensive Care conference, taught at undergraduate and postgraduate level in the school of nursing at Flinders University and travelled and worked overseas. Her proudest role, however, is being a mother to her teenage son, Jackson.

Nicky appreciates how privileged she was to have had a well structured, caring, supportive and involved family who were involved in sport. This is the only culture she and her son have known. Nicky is also fortunate to have a large network of friends. Neil and Nat are among her best mates. She went to school and works with Nat and is honoured to consider them family.

The tragic and senseless loss of Sam, was inconceivable. In the wake of dealing with his loss, and during the process of supporting family and friends, through loss and grief, The Sammy D Foundation was born. Nicky is passionate about working through the foundation’s missions and aims to spread Sam’s story, in an effort to both, significantly improve the quality of, and save lives.

Deb Matthews

Deb Matthews is currently employed as a Continuous Service Improvement Officer at an aged care facility and prior to this she worked in child care.

Deb’s interests include music and she has sung in bands for the last thirty years. Fishing, computer photo restoration, gardening, gold detecting, mosaics, swimming and bush walking are some of the things she likes to do when she gets the chance.

Deb’s role on the executive committee is as the Volunteer Coordinator. Her son was one of Sam’s close friends and as such being involved in the Foundation is a way of honouring Sam and his family.

She feels the Foundation is important as it aims to provide support to youth who may be at risk of entering the juvenile justice system. If the Foundation can get through to even one of these young people, hopefully it will prevent another tragedy.

Deb’s vision for the future as far as the Foundation goes is to see a range of different programmes, activities and support for youth, which will hopefully turn their lives around by giving them a positive direction in life, which will help them to make the right choices.

Matthew Verrall

Matthew Verrall has been a small business manager for the past 4 years. He has completed a trade in the furniture industry and worked in that industry for over 10 years.

Matthew has been a friend of the family for the past 20 years; he is a keen sportsman and played A grade outdoor cricket with Sam as well as Indoor Cricket and Netball. Being involved in sport and community clubs for over 30 years, he has displayed many leadership roles including coaching at a junior and senior level also holding captain and vice captaincy roles. He has also undertaken various committee duties and is currently the vice president of his outdoor cricket club.

Matthew became involved with the foundation because as a close friend of the family and being a father himself knows how important a foundation like this can be to families and at risk youth. He sees this as a chance to make a difference. From his own experience growing up being involved in sport, as was Sam, it gives you a focus and can help prevent you from going down the wrong path in life, provide life skills, friendship, discipline and commitment. Matthew sees the presentations that the foundation has developed along with the party wise approach as great lessons to impart on youth and feels very positive about the direction the foundation is heading in and the difference it will make to so many people’s lives.

Christopher Reed

Christopher Reed graduated from Woodcroft College in 2007 and has been working as an Electrician’s Apprentice since then. He loves sport and is currently playing soccer for South Adelaide.

He likes anything to do with the outdoors, especially fishing and soccer. In his spare time he loves going camping or on a trip somewhere and going out with his mates.

The foundation is very important to Chris because Sam was a great mate and he wants to help keep Sam’s name alive in the community. It is important that this happens as the foundation will provide youth assistance with safe partying and encourage them to be involved in sport. Sport helped him to stay out of trouble when he was younger and this is something the foundation believes in, through sport he has made some great riends and met many people who he now looks up to.

Chris is on the executive committee because he believes in what the foundation stands for and he wants to share Sam’s story as a way to promote healthy lifestyles and provide today’s youth with more opportunities for success.

In the future Chris would like to see the foundation grow into a commonly known household name. He hopes that the foundation can provide assistance to partygoers and party hosts in order to have safe parties where guests can go to enjoy themselves and not have to be subject to violence.

Natalie Hincksman

Natalie Hincksman was born in South Africa moved to France then UK where her schooling was completed. She trained as a Registered Nurse in the UK, moved to Australia in 2002, she met and married her husband, had a child and became an Australian citizen. She has worked in various Intensive Care Units, still does occasional teaching of undergraduates at University and is currently working as a Clinical Retrieval Nurse Coordinator for MedSTAR Emergency Medical Retrieval Service.

Her involvement really started as a friend (nursing & teaching colleague) of Nat. She only met Nat's son Sam a few times prior to his death, but he made a strong impression of being quite a popular and quick witted young man, who wore his shorts too low and ate more in one sitting than her entire family could.

She would consider the day that Sam died, one of the worst days of her working life, a day that all those who work in critical care fear most. There was a quiet about the unit that was unprecedented to her knowledge. Her wish for the Sammy D Foundation... To save all parents from what she saw her friends go through that day... realistically if the foundation only saves one family from the hurt of losing a child, then she would consider the Sammy D Foundation a success.

Peter Hislop

Peter is a proud father of three adult children and worked in the hospitality industry for 14 years and the finance industry for 25 years. Now retired he is a Justice of the Peace and a level 2 sports trainer.

Peter has been working with kids in sporting clubs and school sports for 20+ years in the belief that the discipline and camaraderie in sport helps in their development and helps them to realise their potential, not only as sportspeople, but as responsible members of our society.

He is excited about the work being done by the Sammy D Foundation as he believes that we can really make a difference in the lives and development of today’s youth. The involvement of so many young people (many of them Sammy’s friends) with the Foundation helps us to remain relevant to the needs and attitudes of those in need.